- Insider spoke with a former staffer for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
- Stephen McAllister said Thomas was a “genuine” man but would be “judged for what he does as justice”.
- Thomas recently faced scrutiny for his wife’s alleged effort to cancel the 2020 election.
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Justice Clarence Thomas’ controversial concurring opinion in overturning Roe v. Wade drew criticism for the consistency of the conservative justice, who in particular doesn’t do much when hearing cases and whose political activist wife has raised ethics concerns.
But some who know him personally have defended his character, even though it is at odds with his ideology.
In his view, the divisive justice of more than 30 years said the Supreme Court should “revisit” decisions that established access to birth control and advances in gay rights. That, coupled with the controversy surrounding his wife Ginny’s involvement in the 2020 election nullification attempt, was just the latest in a series of positions that increased scrutiny of his position on the Supreme Court.
In January, Thomas was the only member of the court to vote in favor of former President Donald Trump’s effort to block the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 from obtaining documents related to the failed coup attempt. A petition calling for Thomas’ resignation, arguing that he is not an impartial judge, has garnered more than one million signatures. His conservative ideology has also led to calls for his removal from the court. Similarly, some students at George Washington University, where he teaches, have also called for his suspension from the school.
A former Thomas clerk said the increasingly sour view of justice was in stark contrast to who he was as a person.
Steven McAllister, U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas from 2018 to 2021, clerked for Thomas from October 1991 to January 1992.
“As a person, I think he’s absolutely wonderful, but he’s going to be judged for what he does as justice,” McAllister told Insider, referring to Thomas’ concurring opinion issued when Roe fell in late June, arguing that access to birth control, intimate gay relationships, and marriage equality must be “reconsidered.”
McAllister, who clerked for Thomas and Judge Byron White separately in the 1990s, said that while he “learned from him as a leader,” he didn’t necessarily agree with Thomas’ political views.
“I’m not saying I agree with everything he believes or does, but as a person he’s very genuine, warm, actually humble and sincere and he cares a lot about people actually as individuals,” McAllister said.
Thomas’ past controversies
Early in his career, Thomas faced accusations of sexual harassment by Anita Hill. Hill, who was his assistant while he was assistant secretary of education for civil rights and chairman of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the 1980s, accused him of making unwanted sexual remarks, sometimes “graphically at his own sexual power”. He denied the allegations.
What’s more, his positions haven’t always aligned with some members of the black community, including Rosa Parks, who said Thomas’ presence on the court would be a step backwards for racial progress.
In his concurring opinion, published at the time of Roe’s overrule, Thomas wrote that “we must review all of the Court’s substantial precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.” The repeal, combined with Thomas’s concurrence, has many Americans — politicians and others — worried that the country is rolling back from the progress it has made on reproductive, LGBTQIA+ and civil rights. Thomas, whose wife is a white conservative activist, made no mention of seeking to overturn the right to interracial marriage.
“I’m not necessarily going to defend what he’s saying about things,” McAllister said, adding that Thomas has always maintained an original view of the Constitution.
“He has an opinion about the constitution, but it is consistent,” he said. “I mean, he’s been that way since the beginning, so no surprises.”
Since his appointment to the court by President George H.W. Bush, Thomas has held relatively the same convictions. McAllister argued that Thomas made his decisions for the Court through an “originalist” lens — meaning he believed the Constitution should be read as written.
“He thinks the court has gone down the wrong analytical path since the early 1870s,” McAllister told Insider. He pointed to Thomas’ focus on the “Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment,” which establishes equal protection under the law.
Opinions aside, McAllister said his former boss “wasn’t too high and mighty” and knew trustees or cafeteria staff that other judges might have overlooked.
“He’s a wonderful man and person, and I think probably anyone who’s worked with him will tell you that he’s an extremely personable, down-to-earth guy,” he said.
Similarly, a former assistant to Thomas also defended the judge on July 7 in an op-ed in which he responded to former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who called the justice a “complaint man.”
“In any case, Clarence Thomas was one of 12 black students in his Yale law class. He grew up on a farm during the depths of Jim Crow. Is it easy to forget childhood humiliations and denigrations? Did Frederick Douglass forget his slavery? former assistant Armstrong Williams wrote in an article for The Hill.
“Maybe that’s the ultimate absolute fidelity to the constitution,” he said of Thomas’ conservative positions. “I guess that’s the ultimate originalism. If you take this view that the document really is the original intent, then if you’ve deviated from that, then the right path is to go back to it, even if you deviated from it a long time ago.”
The Supreme Court did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment. Thomas was not immediately available for comment.
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